Melinda Gates

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American philanthropist Melinda Gates, 2021.

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Melinda Gatesis an American businesswoman and philanthropist who—with her then husband, Microsoft Corporation cofounder Bill Gates—established (2000) the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which became one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world. In May 2024 Gates announced that she would be resigning from the foundation the following month.

She first became interested in computers when a seventh-grade teacher placed her in an advanced math class. After graduating from the Ursuline Academy (a Catholic girls’ high school), she studied computer science and economics at Duke University (B.S., 1986; M.B.A., 1987). She joined Microsoft in product development in 1987 and rose to become general manager of information products. She married Bill Gates on January 1, 1994. When their first child was born, in 1996, she left the company to concentrate on her family and on the couple’s charitable work. The couple later had two more children.

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Melinda Gates, 2007.

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Along with her husband, Melinda Gates initiated her charitable endeavors in 1994, largely at the behest of Bill’s father, William H. Gates, but also from the example of Bill’s mother, a devoted philanthropist who had died earlier that year. Their first effort, the William H. Gates Foundation, pursued global health programs as well as projects in the Pacific Northwest, where they lived. Three years later they launched the Gates Library Foundation (renamed Gates Learning Foundation in 1999) to benefit North American libraries, with a particular focus on bringing Internet technology to public libraries. Next came the Gates Millennium Scholars program (1999), which directed $1 billion toward minority study grants. The couple consolidated their charitable interests in 2000 as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a reported endowment of $17 billion.

In May 2006 the Gateses were awarded Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. In June billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a personal friend of the couple, announced his plan to direct some $30 billion of his fortune to the Gates Foundation in the coming years.

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Bill and Melinda Gates, 2009.

© 2009 Kjetil Ree

By 2006 the foundation was on of the world’s largest. Counting Buffett’s pledge, its assets would total roughly $60 billion in the next 20 years. In anticipation of its growth needs, the Gates Foundation was reorganized into three divisions: global health (including nutrition), global development, and community and education causes in the United States. Through these changes, the foundation underscored its commitment to solving health problems around the world, with particular emphasis on developing treatments and vaccines for malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis; controlling insects that transmit diseases; and developing superfoods in the fight against malnutrition. Despite the huge endowment and the Gateses’ personal wealth, the foundation funded no program single-handedly. Instead, it compelled other organizations, firms, and even countries to help underwrite programs. Their collaborative approach evoked an African proverb cited by Melinda Gates and others at the Gates Foundation: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”

In 2021 Melinda and Bill Gates divorced. However, the couple agreed to continue to serve as cochairs at the foundation for a trial period. By 2024 the foundation had paid out more than $75 billion in grants. That year Melinda Gates announced that she would be leaving the organization, effective June 7. As part of her divorce settlement, she received $12.5 billion for her own charitable work, which she said would focus on women and families.

In 2016 Gates was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She later wrote The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (2019).